Pursuant to an order made on Thursday, December 1, the House will now proceed to taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-245 under private members' business.

Pursuant to an order made on Thursday, December 1, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-228 under private members' business.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on another matter. On private members' business, the entire process is designed so that the votes start at the back and move their way forward.

It is disturbing to me that there have been numerous occasions when entire rows have missed the vote, and the vote has come forward and then jumped back to a row farther to the back. I think that defeats the purpose of the way that we vote on private members' business.

I would encourage you to look at the tape. I think if people miss an entire row, they probably have missed their opportunity to cast their ballot on a particular issue.

I appreciate the intervention by the hon. member for Chilliwack—Hope. I think that the intention and desire is to make sure the members' vote is counted in the way they desire.

Were I someone who never made a mistake, I might be less open to that, but I am certainly not one of those.

I will consider it further, and if I need to come back to the House, I will do so. I thank the member for raising this.

Further to the first point of order, if a member did not stand at all on a vote, he or she would require unanimous consent to have that vote counted. The member for King—Vaughan did not stand at all. I suspect she would like unanimous consent. I see her nodding.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to finish the speech that I was just getting started on. In my speech, I talked about how, in the conversation around fetal alcohol disorder, it can be hard for mothers to admit to drinking alcohol during pregnancy. They are often embarrassed to admit it, especially if they have said that they stopped drinking when they found out they were pregnant.

Unfortunately, scientific research tells us that consuming alcohol can be most harmful to the fetus in the first trimester. By that time, the damage is already done.

Scientists started talking about fetal alcohol syndrome in 1968. The first case was described by a French pediatrician, Paul Lemoine, but it was not until 1973 that the syndrome was officially recognized. That means that some people over the age of 43 may have the syndrome, but may not have been diagnosed at birth because the condition was not recognized then.

Individuals aged 43 and up might have this problem, be in the prison system, have a criminal record, and be misunderstood because of this health condition. What is more, sometimes it can be a challenge to look to the past to determine whether it is a case of fetal alcohol disorder because that requires a record of drinking during pregnancy. The mother may already be deceased making it impossible to establish whether alcohol was consumed during the pregnancy or not.

This is important to note because there is a clear link between fetal alcohol disorder and criminal behaviour. An estimated 60% of people with fetal alcohol disorder will have run-ins with the law in their lifetime. That is a very high number. Sixty percent is more than one in two people and that creates problems. These are persons who are more easily influenced by the ill-intentioned people around them. These are persons who struggle with judgment, which makes them more susceptible to being lured by others into a life of crime. There are many effects—